


Monster of the Week

by Slant



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga), Metropolis (1927)
Genre: Monster of the Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 23:38:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10955106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slant/pseuds/Slant
Summary: The film festival is free, and perfectly safe.





	Monster of the Week

**Author's Note:**

> So when I did my last Sailor moon bit, with Doorknobdor, I realised how few monster-of-the-week fics there were, which seemed weird to me, so here you go.

It is unusual for Ami to be the one who brings a new adventure. A new cram school maybe, but normally her projects are long-term, worthwhile and build solid value- lifeguard training, or automotive engineering classes. Something as frivolous as a film festival is unusual and she is intensely nervous that it will be a failure. She _knows_ Usagi and she knows she has no patience for subtitles. She suspects that black and white (or tinted) and/or silent will also be deal-breakers. But she wants this and even if no one will see the movies she wants to see, there are multiple screenings and they can meet up afterwards or in-between.

...

The Dark Kingdom either want to watch it themselves or are expecting energy to build over _Metropolis's_ 149 minutes run-time. It doesn't. Modern Japanese interest in 1920s silent movies is limited, and the audience of art students, posers, film buffs and deeply pretentious weirdos is only marginally more energetic than Usagi, who is asleep. 

Ami is, in her own quiet way, enjoying the hell out of it - The cinematography! - The essay on labour relations!- Occasionally being able to read the German without resorting to the subtitles!  
Rai at least appreciates some of the messages- the spiritual vacuum of mechanised labour! -but is not looking forward to the argument with Usagi when she wakes up- she had made a truly Herculean effort to stay awake, even if she only lasted to "Das sind Eure Brüder*". She'd even tried to understand ("What's this bit about?" "Stark imaginary of the dehumanising nature of mechanised labour" "I don't get it"), but Rai found that ridiculous and annoying, but maybe a bit endearing. 

On the screen, the Maschinenmensch stands from her throne and takes her first faltering steps. The beautiful blank face stares out of the screen, lips parted in an inhuman expression. Rotwang gloats over his achievement and Fredersen calculates how to turn her into profit, as he does with all things. She walks forward again, more certain, and these is a muttering in the audience; this was never in "Giorgio Moroder Presents" or the "Restored Authorized Edition" and some people here are obsessed enough to know that.

She steps out of the movie screen, still in black and white but now fully three dimensional too. She is huge - at least 250 cm tall, and casts a black shadow on the screen behind her.

Audience reactions are mixed: some mutter to themselves that its their own fault for going to a screening with Japanese subtitles, and really once you've adulterated the movie to that extent it might as will have sound and colour and be about explosions and lens flare. Others are impressed by the technical mastery of projection technique.

Behind her, the scene vanishes, replaced by an intertitle reading "Give me your energy!" She holds up her hand in a demanding gesture. The timing between reading the card and her action is exquisite.  
The audience slumps.

Rai nudges Usagi back to wakefulness. She squeaks, claims to have been awake all along, panics, finally notices the Youma on stage and then panics again. 

With impatience and love, Rai urges her to transform. Ami sneaks to the projection booth. 

Seconds later a sleepy Sailor Moon is casting about desperately for content for her speech.  
"Brutal imaginary of the dehumanising nature of mechanised labour is a beautiful dream in young maidens' hearts!"  
"I can not forgive someone who uses German expressionist films for evil!"

Then the and the screen goes dark and the Youma vanishes: Ami comes out of the projection booth and asks "I turned the projector off. Did that work?"

"Did you smash the projector as an expression of you essential humanity rebelling against the tyranny of the Machine?" asks Tuxado Kaman, standing tall on one of the lighting-fixtures. He had clearly paid attention to the movie's message, and maybe for a moment, Ami can see what Rai and Usagi keep obsessing over.  
"I ... I just turned it off, without having an artistic vision I was trying to realise. Do you think that will be a problem?"

The projector whirs back into life and the gynoid reassembles itself out of film jitter and static.

"Now Tuxado Kaman! Throw a rose through the take-up reel, symbolising the triumph of Nature over all Man's works!" says Mamoru, and he sighs. It is a bit depressing when you have to give your own pep-talk, but the Sailors are always so busy. 

The film tears, judders and comes to rest on an intertitle reading "Mittler Zwischen hirn und händen muss das herz sein**."  
The Youma vanishes again, this time for good. 

*These are your brothers  
**"The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart"

**Author's Note:**

> There can be no Utopia before the last 6 minutes of Metropolis are found- this fic claims 2 more minutes than "the complete" 2010 release, but Crystal Tokyo will never be built before the rest is assembled :)
> 
> I was torn between bit where the Maschinenmensch stands and having the mind-controlled audience walk into the screen and into the mouth of Moloch, because that is a hell of a scene, but Maschinenmensch looks to me, a bit like an early Dark Kingdom monster-of-the-week. Maybe one of Jadeite's random lady-friends?


End file.
